A long-awaited UAE debut for the veteran Indian artist KG Subramanyan

KG Subramanyan, one of India's greatest living masters is having his first show in the UAE.

K G Subramanyan’s piece Santiniketan. Courtesy K G Subramanyan

One of India’s greatest masters is about to have his first exhibition in the UAE, after more than five decades of practising art.

K G Subramanyan – or KGS, as he is popularly known – began studying art in the 1950s and has had a great influence on his country’s art and design ­traditions.

The exhibition, titled Sketches, Scribbles, Drawings by KG Subramanyan, begins with early sketches from the 1960s and moves on to drawings from the 1970s, black-and-white art from the 1980s, and nature and figure studies from the 1990s before coming right up to date with gouache, or pigment paintings, that are less than a month old.

Although he is now 91 years old, Subramanyan still paints or draws every day.

“When I get up to take my breakfast, the only way to keep me going through the day is to work,” he says. “I always doodle – you could call me a compulsive doodler. It is my way of getting into a relationship with what I see.”

Subramanyan, whose work often focuses on the figure, but also draws on traditional myths and legends as well as embracing the Indian tradition of miniature painting, has become one of India’s most important artists. But, he says, he got into art quite by accident.

“When I started out, I didn’t try to be an artist, I studied for an economics degree,” he says. But after he was jailed for a short time for his participation in the Quit India Movement during the fight for independence, it was difficult to find employment in that field, so he started studying art.

“So, you see, I went into art by default, although I always had a love for it,” he says.

Visitors to the five-day exhibition will be able to explore his five decades of practice, during which he explored many styles and influences. They may have their own particular favourites, but for the artist, there is no particular era that stands out.

“I am favourable to every time in my life, why should I prefer one time over another?” he says. “In the past 50 years, everything has changed so drastically in the world that I don’t look back with nostalgia, I just move with the times.”

Due to ill health, Subramanyan will not be able to visit Abu Dhabi for his show, which is at India House, the Embassy of India, but he says that he will be there in spirit.

“India has a very rich ­tradition of artistic languages and I am interested in all of them. I hope people can witness them through my work and see the many layers of languages I try to portray.”

• Sketches, Scribbles, Drawings by K G Subramanyan opens on Thursday, and entry is by invitation only. It is open to the public from Friday until April 14 from 10.30am to 6.30pm, subject to prior appointment. For more information, visit indembassyuae.org